ME3 on Wii U or the poor relative of the ME universe

For the playing experience I will start with the MP…


The ME3MP old-timers will probably remember the maps before Retaliation, which were molded to be as close as possible to the SP maps, the most notable differences to the recent maps being White and Glacier.


The most difficult part is to actually find players to play with. Most of the times I finished by soloing because nobody will join.

I must admit I’ve forgotten how much I love the Human Characters and how OP they are – my first extraction was with a Lvl 5 Human Adept. The best part was that from my second (or third) veteran pack I’ve got the Claymore which in the hands of my Lvl 10 Human Infiltrator proved good enough to allow me to top some of the rare PUGs.

Regarding the quality of the players I cannot say much as given my rather poor manifest (no AP, no gear except Multicapacitor I etc.) I dared not (for the time being) to go beyond bronze. I’ve met decent players and also jerks who do not come for hacks or escorts and of course as soon as it’s extraction wave it’s boxing day on the LZ…


My favorite MP experience, till now, was role-playing with the Phaeston TSol (my only turian  ).

On all the other platforms, my first playthrough was as Paragon, so I chose a Spacer male Engineer. I had one special theory that I wanted to disprove in this playthrough: that you cannot get both Quarian and the Geth on Rannoch unless you import a game from ME2 in which both Tali and Legion are alive and loyal.


So my choices in Genesis were:
- ME1: no romance, save the rachni queen, do not kill Wrex, leave Ashley (personal note - I find Kaidan much more useful in ME3), save the council and Anderson as councilor
- ME2: all companions recruited and loyal (resolve conflicts), Shep moves on and romances Tali , prepare the ship (if you choose to save the crew, Jack, Legion and Thane die), destroyed the Collector's base.

On to the game...     

I found no major differences in the game up to the first meeting with Wrex. Some dialogue related to Liara being the Shadow Broker is missing and I found Garrus rather aloof despite being loyal - that was probably related to my Paragon score being rather low. You cannot save Jondum Bau on the Citadel because there's no loyal Kasumi (I know - deal breaker for some of you... for me, the best loyalty mission in ME2). I got Javik and the PPR ( should I say for? ). Due to my choice of keeping Legion alive, no Kelly Chambers .

I went on to save Jack's kids from the Grissom Academy (no David because no Overlord) and did my best to piss off TIM by doing all the N7 missions. 

The first shock was meeting Wrex who kept on picking on me about Maelon's data, being almost hostile. So despite the fact that you completed Mordin's loyalty mission you chose to destroy Maelon's data at the end, imo a Renegade choice. The net result of this - you can cure the genophage (thus repairing your relationship with Wrex) but you cannot save Eve   .

Before curing the genophage I got meself some rachni and of course Grunt from the Attican Traverse. I also made sure that Cerberus could not detonate the Turian bomb on Tuchanka, in the process gaining primarch Victus' gratitude for the way I helped his son.   

The attempted Cerberus coup and the first meeting with the worst written character in ME3 (yup, imo it's Kai Leng) went on as usual, my poor Thane dying as a result. No Conrad Verner, so you cannot find the saboteur in the medigel problem on the docks. No Zaeed, so saving the volus ambassador turns into a frantic run between doors in the Presidium and you can either save the Turian colony or get the Volus bombing fleet, but not both. You can get the batarian fleet because, guess what, Balak is on the Citadel (though he acts as he meets you for the first time so no BDtS).

I chose to save the Cerberus scientists (and thus meet Jacob - as annoying as ever) and solve the Ardat Yakshi problem for the Asari High Command (also saving Samara and her daughter).

    

By the time I went to meet the quarians and my beloved Tali, now an admiral, I was beyond 4 points in Reputation, overwhelmingly Paragon. After catching up with Tali in my cabin (Paramour achievement ) I went on to disable the Geth dreadnought where I met Legion and brought it back on the Normandy. By talking to him I found out that I chose to destroy the Heretics in ME2 which made the alliance with the Reapers more difficult to accept for it.

I landed on Rannoch, to save admiral Koris from the Geth and brought him back to the civilian fleet. I also disabled the Geth fighters which were attacking the quarian supplies ships in the process acquiring some Geth Primes.

And now to the moment of truth: Priority Rannoch. Everyting went as expected up to the final battle with the Reaper, which, as usual took me three tries to finish. We get to the standoff between the Geth and the Quarian, I tell Legion to proceed with the upload and voila! I get the option to charm the Quarian fleet. I manage to stop them, Legion sacrifices himself for Geth intelligence and I have another two fleets to add to my War Assets...

For all te rest of the game everything went on as usual: Thessia -> Horizon -> Cerberus HQ -> Earth. I chose the blue of control, because it's been my least used ending (actually I don't remember choosing before control with a Paragon male)...  

I have a playthrough on me3 on the wii where Maelon's data were saved, I think you have to choose to not resolve the conflicts to save them, but then a lot of people will die on the suicide mission.